Chapter Text
When Liu Qingge became aware of himself, it was in flashes and movements.
He felt his throat ripped raw as he screamed and his limbs nearly tore themselves out of their sockets as he attacked. His blood burned in his veins, his qi shrieked in his meridians, and he felt his core shudder under the stress.
Liu Qingge was having a qi deviation and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
That didn’t stop him from trying.
His eyes stung as rogue power escaped any way it could from his body, trying to prevent a core collapse — but he was able to make out that he was in Ling Xi Caves. It took him a little longer to discover who his opponent was. It took a glimpse of a celadon sleeve for him to understand it was Shen Qingqiu.
But of course it would have been. Who else?
He felt a twinge of suspicion that the lord of Qing Jing Peak may have even provoked his deviation before he set it aside. Whether Shen Qingqiu had done so or not wasn’t important at the moment. Liu Qingge did not want to kill him if he wasn’t certain of his guilt. He did not want that shadow of doubt on his soul; a permanent stain on his perfect control.
Less perfect now, of course, no matter what happened from here.
Thankfully Shen Qingqiu was a slippery bastard and more than smart enough to know that even while having a deviation, Liu Qingge was more than his match in battle. Shen Qingqiu stayed well clear of his wild swings and powerful lunges.
In many ways, it should have been a battle Liu Qingge relished — the feeling of for once being able to fight Shen Qingqiu without a third party stepping in to try to mediate. He’d always wanted to properly dump him into the dirt and force him to admit defeat. It wasn’t something that Shen Qingqiu’s pride would abide in front of others, but Liu Qingge suspected that if it was just the two of them, where Shen Qingqiu would never be made to openly acknowledge that it’d happened, he might be coaxed — forced — into submitting.
That couldn’t happen this time, of course. Under these circumstances, Shen Qingqiu’s defeat would be more likely to lead to his death. As much as he disliked and distrusted Shen Qingqiu, it was not his death he truly wanted.
Liu Qingge could barely feel himself move now. He should have felt the dirt and stone churn beneath his bare feet, the cling of his robes on sweat-damp skin, the satisfying flex of muscle, and the hum of blood in his veins.
Instead he felt almost nothing. He was even somewhat detached from his own emotions — not in his usual way of experiencing a cool and steady battle flow state, but more as if he were watching something someone else was doing from another room. If he hadn’t been so focused on regaining control so he wouldn’t kill Shen Qingqiu, he thought he might have even been tempted to wander away in search of a more thrilling battle. One he could participate in properly.
Without his permission, his body screamed a primal, wordless threat.
Shen Qingqiu was screaming too.
To Liu Qingge’s surprise, Shen Qingqiu wasn’t screaming in fear or anger — or, not only fear and anger. Though he couldn’t make out the words, the tone was clear enough — he was trying to talk him down and bring him back to reason.
There was… concern there. To his credit, it even sounded sincere.
The idea was unsettling enough to sober Liu Qingge a little. His qi reacted similarly. Liu Qingge felt some of it pull back into his core and strengthen it again. It wasn’t quite enough to snap him out of his deviation, but it gave him more resources to try to regain his control. He grasped blindly for what he needed and felt a searing pain as mind and body seemed on the verge of splitting apart.
Liu Qingge’s figure lurched like a wooden puppet suddenly and abruptly halted in place, his limbs swinging and then hanging limply.
Out of the corner of his eye, Shen Qingqiu moved and for the first time Liu Qingge was able to see his face — pale and drawn; the concern he’d heard in his voice being further betrayed by his expression. He saw the man saying his name, his body tense with wariness. Shen Qingqiu hesitantly crept closer, hand lifted in a soothing motion.
Startled again by the idea that Shen Qingqiu seemed to genuinely want to help him, Liu Qingge’s grip on his wild power weakened — only a little, but it was enough for his body to obey its instincts and move again to attack.
Shen Qingqiu was only defending himself — Liu Qingge could see that clearly — but it’s still no pleasant thing to watch yourself die. His mortal shell crumpled beneath him and he watched it fall, leaving ‘himself’ behind. All he could do was stare down at it at his feet and watch helplessly as the lines of pain and rage left his expression.
His attention was pulled away from his body as he recognized Shen Qingqiu was having a panic attack, his face pulled into a rictus of horror and regret. The peak lord known for his proud composure and smug serenity was nothing less than shattered now. Still reeling with shock, Liu Qingge watched as the other man unraveled, muttering about not having meant to, about having tried to help.
Liu Qingge believed him.
But there was still a spark of resentment there. An automatic thought of, If you had not been here, I would have lived. He had no way of knowing that, of course. In fact, if he allowed himself to look at it objectively, he would probably arrive at a different conclusion — but Liu Qingge wasn’t in a state where he could coolly analyze and accept what had happened gracefully.
Emotions began to flood back into him then and he realized he didn’t want to accept things.
He wanted to act on this new grudge and long-standing resentment between them. He saw Shen Qingqiu collapse beside his body and knew that if he attacked now, there was no way the other man could resist. He could get his revenge.
That sobered him instantly.
Liu Qingge abruptly turned his attention away from the pile of celadon silks and to his own body. He might have still had a chance to live if he did something immediately. He refused to become a wrathful ghost, murdering someone who had only tried to help and forcing his sect-mates to destroy him. He tried for what might have been more than an hour to fit his spirit back into his body, but he kept being pushed out again, as if he were being pulled away.
Something about their battle must have drawn the attention of someone outside of the caves, because several peak lords — armed and wary — made their way inside. Mu Qingfang and Yue Qingyuan broke into runs the moment they saw them, leaving the others behind as they gathered around their fallen bodies and checked on them.
Voices became a cacophony as everyone spoke at once; their words bouncing off of the cave walls and colliding into unintelligible sounds. Liu Qingge had no idea how they understood each other. He didn’t bother to try — what was there to understand other than that he was dead and Shen Qingqiu needed aid in order not to follow him to the afterlife? He trusted that neither Yue Qingyuan nor Mu Qingfang would allow something like that to happen.
Resigned to the inevitable, he watched as his body was carried out of the caves in one direction and Shen Qingqiu was carried off in another.
Liu Qingge followed after Shen Qingqiu, of course.
Shen Qingqiu might have only been meaning to help him, but he did still kill him. It’s only fair Liu Qingge get to entertain himself by haunting him a little.
***
It’s immediately clear to everyone who interacts with him that what happened in Ling Xi Caves changed Shen Qingqiu.
He was obviously doing his best to pretend that nothing was wrong, but everyone who knew him was aware it was a lie, even if only one by omission. There’s something in the way he paused a moment before responding. The wary way he watched people from underneath his lashes or from behind his fan. The oddly relaxed manner he behaved in situations he’d normally be defensive or snappy.
The most damning was how polite he was. Not just in that superior way he had before of using good manners as a weapon — he’s even borderline friendly and forgiving when ‘friendly’ was something he seemed to use to taunt those he knew and ‘forgiving’ was complete anathema to him.
This rightly concerned the peak lords, who discussed Shen Qingqiu frequently after they left him to rest inside of his little bamboo house, huddling together outside as if they could not wait one minute more to talk over what they’d witnessed. Yue Qingyuan only needed one careless smile from Shen Qingqiu to agree to various tests for possession by ghosts or demons to be conducted.
Liu Qingge stayed out of the house when people arrived to perform those tests. Though he wasn’t possessing Shen Qingqiu, or even interested in doing so, the last thing he wanted was to be discovered and exorcised. Thanks to his senses still being sharp, if not as good in ghost form as they were when he was alive and properly in control of his qi, he overheard the other peak lords agreeing that Shen Qingqiu must have had a qi deviation that lead to a minor form of amnesia.
They agreed that Shen Qingqiu seemed to remember a fair amount of things and it was safe to let him continue with his peak lord duties. It might even be better than usual, they said with tentative hopefulness. He seemed calmer and more content. They just won’t mention what happened in Ling Xi Caves or what happened to Liu Qingge. They don’t want to trigger his trauma again. It would be better if the memories come back to him more naturally, if they ever came back at all.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this is all an act, frankly,” one of the peak lords said with cool bitterness. “He might think we will blame him for Liu Qingge, so he pretends to have forgotten everything and plays nice so we won’t say a single harsh word.”
A few people made hushing noises, but no one actually defended Shen Qingqiu. Not even Yue Qingyuan, whose blind preference for the man generally infuriated everyone.
They left and Liu Qingge pushed his way through the walls of the bamboo house — a convenient ghostly skill that almost made up for how much effort it was to interact normally with physical objects. He looked across the room to see Shen Qingqiu gently coaxing a trembling teenager with dark, fluffy hair through serving him his lunch. He was very patient with him, speaking softly as he ignored the mistakes the young disciple made. Once lunch was served, the boy hurried to leave without seeming to flee from his sight, but from the way Shen Qingqiu’s green eyes followed the boy’s exit with an expression of resigned pity, it was as clear to Shen Qingqiu as it was Liu Qingge that the boy was terrified.
If any of the peak lords could see the way Shen Qingqiu sighed and dropped his masks all at once, they wouldn’t believe that he was faking anything.
He looked exhausted and a bit lonely, falling out of his perfect posture to slump and lean on the table as he listlessly picked at the offerings, wincing at their bland flavors. It seemed to surprise him at every meal and he always ended up picking at his food, relying mainly on any raw or lightly-dressed fruit or vegetables to sustain him.
Of all the peaks, only Ku Xing and Liu Qingge’s own Bai Zhan were said to have worse food — at least if you heeded the opinions of the Zui Xian peak lord, who repeatedly begged them all to let her create menus to suit the other peaks’ preferences. Liu Qingge felt a twist of regret that he had not permitted it. He knew the peak lord would have sincerely listened to his thoughts on dietary needs and efficiency and not created anything that would be wasteful. He’d just ignored her coaxing because Shen Qingqiu did, who pretended he was above such earthly concerns as requiring his food to be a pleasure to eat. At least Ku Xing had its ascetic precepts to follow as its excuse for declining.
Though he felt a bit sorry for Shen Qingqiu in the moment, it didn’t prevent Liu Qingge from moving over to concentrate some of his qi into two fingertips and use them to flick a small empty dish off the edge of the table.
“Aiyah…” Shen Qingqiu sighed, rolled his eyes, and immediately set to cleaning up the mess himself, apparently not questioning how the dish fell over in spite of being left several inches from the edge.
Not like the Shen Qingqiu he knew.
Not at all.
The Shen Qingqiu he knew would have raged, or at least shouted for a disciple to clean up the mess as he glowered at them for not doing it properly or quickly enough. Even if he were faking his amnesia, in private there would be no reason for him to pretend mere exasperation rather than anger, even if he chose not to involve someone else to vent it on.
***
After a few weeks of haunting Shen Qingqiu it became clear that the person currently wearing the Qing Jing peak lord’s face and performing his duties was someone else entirely.
It wasn’t mere amnesia at work either — it was a different person. How the tests for possession didn’t say exactly that, Liu Qingge had no way of knowing, but his unique position to be able to watch Shen Qingqiu without detection let him collect all the evidence necessary to convince him of this fact.
Well — it really hadn’t even taken him more than a few days to come to that conclusion, but it went from insight to conviction as the evidence piled up over the weeks.
Piece of evidence number one: Shen Qingqiu was nice to his disciples.
Though of course Liu Qingge did not willingly spend a great deal of time around Shen Qingqiu before — certainly not nearly every hour of the day, sometimes watching him from afar and sometimes literally hovering over his shoulder as he examined what the peak lord was working on — he still knew quite well that Shen Qingqiu was not kind to his disciples. At best he might flatter one that was well-connected, or praise someone who toadied up to him, or be more gentle with the girls than the boys, or turn a blind eye to mischief if it was against someone he didn’t like.
But this was different.
He seemed to have a genuine interest in his disciples now. He took the time to patiently guide the less apt until they understood something. He was gentle with those who were skittish around him, carefully teasing them into relaxing. He challenged and tricked those who seemed up to the task to step out of their comfort zone and rewarded them for it. He taught them things that Liu Qingge was sure that there was no way for Shen Qingqiu to know. He certainly taught them in ways that he never had attempted before, based on the confusion and cautious delight of the disciples. He praised often, usually explaining what they had done well. He seemed uncomfortable with attempts from disciples to humble themselves for him or curry his favor, merely thanking them for serving him until they learned the more reasonable ways they could now gain his approval.
Most importantly, he put a stop to the bullying that ran rampant on Qing Jing Peak.
It started with a speech delivered to all of his disciples and was followed by swiftly punishing those who assumed it was just lip service. He even went so far as to talk to individual disciples, trying to make them understand his sincerity.
Only those who showed no attempts to alter their poor behavior suffered any amount of the old icy, spiteful side of him. Whoever had replaced Shen Qingqiu had that part of him perfectly in-character.
One sharp glance was enough to quell most disciples’ desire to jockey for a higher position in the social order by trampling another underfoot. Those who were too stupid to understand it was no longer tolerated — or thought themselves above this new law and more clever than their master — were cowed into submission by one overbearing loom and a snap of Shen Qingqiu’s fan like a viper’s strike; made all the more terrifying for the contrast to the new, gentler behavior. Shen Qingqiu hardly needed to use words at that point — they were ready to promise their master anything to avoid seeing a resurgence of their old shizun.
And that was how he was referred to in whispers behind their master’s back: ‘The Old Shizun’ or ‘Shizun Before’ as opposed to a simple ‘Shizun’, which was often said with quiet awe or bright eyes. It was as if the children instinctively knew what Liu Qingge knew in spite of not having the same amount of access.
Piece of evidence number two: He’s extra tolerant with Yue Qingyuan.
It sounds like such a small thing — for Shen Qingqiu to smile with polite neutrality and, after the bare minimum of what can be considered an appropriate amount of time for a visit (that is to say, as long as it takes for one of them to finish their cup of tea) Shen Qingqiu shows signs of wanting him gone — but it’s huge. Just about anyone in the sect would know that.
Shen Qingqiu ‘Before’ would be barely civil to the sect master during his single monthly visit — but if he missed even one of them, even for good reason, Shen Qingqiu’s petty rage would know no limits.
Yue Qingyuan came at least twice a week now, basking as much as his dignity would allow in the tepid hospitality this new Shen Qingqiu offered and almost beaming when Shen Qingqiu used carefully constructed methods of prompting him to leave, excusing himself for being busy or tired, or having the table cleared and feigning ignorance that Yue Qingyuan wasn’t finished. The sect leader would always smile gently and make his goodbyes when he could no longer himself feign he didn’t understand he was wanted gone and came back a few days later with a new gift and a warmer smile.
Shen Qinggiu seemed bemused by it all, appearing more on-edge by attempts from Yue Qingyuan to speak of their past than the visits themselves. He was even sometimes friendly until he realized it encouraged the sect master towards greater displays of intimacy. At the flash of panic in his eyes when Yue Qingyuan tried to reminisce, Liu Qingge realized that Shen Qingqiu was still under the impression that everyone believed he was recovering from simple exhaustion. If he knew everyone thought he was suffering from amnesia, he might have been relieved that he could just close the conversation by claiming not to remember.
From the murmurings Liu Qingge overheard at Qing Jing Peak, some people thought that the sect master was attempting to court Shen Qingqiu, but Liu Qingge could tell they were mistaken. This was the love of a father or older brother trying to regain favor from a beloved child whose trust he’d lost. Liu Qingge knew what that looked like, even if he hadn’t experienced it himself.
It made him pity Yue Qingyuan, who did not know the child he sought was gone. This pity must have been what made this new Shen Qingqiu suffer through the visits, if the guilty flashes of expression he occasionally let slip were any indication.
Piece of evidence number three: He smiles — and means it.
As his disciples and even the other peak lords (several of whom visit him, though not as frequently as Yue Qingyuan) begin to relax and open up with him, Shen Qingqiu smiled.
It transforms his face when he smiles. And he has so many different smiles that it becomes easier and easier to think of him as an entirely different person from the original. The old Shen Qingqiu had only three smiles: cold, bitter, and cruel.
Sometime in the second week, Shen Qingqiu began to laugh. Mostly when he was by himself while he was reading, but sometimes the disciples or peak lords caught him off guard and he slipped.
Liu Qingge didn’t blame any of them for staring whenever that happened.
He stared too.
It was hard to play his small pranks on Shen Qingqiu too soon after he’d seen one of his smiles or heard one of his laughs. By this point he knew that whoever it was inside Shen Qingqiu’s body had nothing to do with his death, but he felt almost obligated to haunt him anyway.
To be fair, it was partially out of pure practicality, not merely lingering desire for petty revenge. He felt his ability to affect the physical world increase the more often he did so. He did not want to fade away with no grudge or fixation to keep him bound to the mortal world, so he made it his duty to investigate this new Shen Qingqiu and test how he could get him to reveal more of himself.
To judge if he was a danger to the sect, of course.
Surprisingly, his ‘pranks’ passed mostly unnoticed, apparently written off as inattentiveness, accidents, or coincidences. Sometimes it caused Shen Qingqiu to show a new smile (mostly colored by confusion, of course) or even made him laugh.
Liu Qingge thought it spoke well towards the spirit that inhabited Shen Qingqiu’s body not being malevolent. Perhaps it could still be dangerous in some other way, but its basic nature seemed benign. That must have been why the detection attempts by the other peak lords saw no issue with him replacing the original Shen Qingqiu.
Pieces of evidence number four and five: He sometimes talks to himself and/or an accomplice.
This is the most conclusive evidence of all, of course. They say it directly, out loud, that Shen Qingqiu is someone else from another world.
At that point it becomes less of a clue than a registered fact.
At first Shen Qingqiu merely muttered or ranted to himself while alone, often speaking to someone invisible that Liu Qingge was only just barely able to sense exists and was not some madness the man was still aware enough to keep hidden from others. Then one of Shang Qinghua’s visits dissolved into an altercation that for several troubled minutes Liu Qingge expected would provide him with a new ghostly companion — in Shen Qingqiu’s favor, of course. The trembling, mousy peak lord Shang Qinghua would struggle to defeat either Shen Qingqiu even if he caught them dead asleep and weaponless.
The discovery that both were souls from another world, transported against their wishes into the bodies of these peak lords and doing their best to… correct something that might go wrong in the future was startling — especially knowing that Shang Qinghua was the same person he’d always known.
It was unclear exactly what they meant about their missions since wherever they came from presumably had different, more casual and more whimsical ways of speaking that they fell into the habit of using when alone together. It was difficult to follow along sometimes, especially as the topic of their mission often became derailed any time Shang Qinghua said something to throw Shen Qingqiu into a fury — which was often and for reasons Liu Qingge couldn’t always understand. (Though he was willing to give this new Shen Qingqiu the benefit of the doubt that it was justified.)
Liu Qingge came to understand that in the other world, “Brother Cucumber” (Shen Qingqiu) and “Brother Airplane” (Shang Qinghua) were passing acquaintances, albeit of the sort where “Cucumber” offered patronage and advice to “Airplane”. This somehow gave “Cucumber” the social status to blame their current circumstances on “Airplane” — who accepted the shame with a cheerful sort of disregard that was far more endearing than the purely scurrying Shang Qinghua that Liu Qingge had always known.
By the end of the first meeting, in spite of the violence Shen Qingqiu showed him, this somehow made them friends — which “Airplane” declares openly and “Cucumber” pretends not to tolerate or appreciate.
It takes him a bit of time, but Liu Qingge can only arrive at the conclusion that they are immortal fairies sent to thwart some grand tragedy that Shang Qinghua predicted that involves the most trembling of Shen Qingqiu’s disciples. Liu Qingge has vague memories of fighting with the original Shen Qingqiu over taking this Luo Binghe as a disciple, so it is somehow not surprising once he recognizes that.
He also hears that the previous souls — of both Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua — are never to return. The two fairies are relatively sure once they discuss it and feel it’s confirmed by what they hear from their fairy guides from “the System” (perhaps their way of referring to the Heavens). It seems that “the System” says that they are to live out the rest of their lives under these names, whether they succeed in their missions or die in the attempt.
Liu Qingge was… fine with this. Surprisingly fine with this.
Isn’t it better for the sect? From how closely he’s watched this Shen Qingqiu (he cannot bring himself to fully accept their fairy names — easier to think of them by the names they must now accept as their own), the fairy is just as talented in his role as the original, only much nicer. And they are charged with performing a service that will affect the world for the good of more than just their own sect. Even Shang Qinghua apparently has his uses, or why else send him?
It’s interesting to him that neither really knows why they were selected to be brought to this world. They were apparently taken at roughly the same time, though Shang Qinghua arrived in his new body first, charged with working hard to attain his position as peak lord of An Ding and not much else.
Of course, it’s obvious that Shen Qingqiu is the true instrument of the world’s salvation.
He was the one who had complained about the prophecy and no one acting on it to prevent the tragedy.
He’s even admirable, taking as well as he did to being stolen away from his life of leisure and safety in order to patiently teach the children and expose himself to all manner of threats he’d be immune to in his previous world. Liu Qingge can’t help but find him even more fascinating the better he gets to know him and see the contrast between the outwardly mature and tranquil Lord of Qing Jing Peak and the funny, even if sometimes childishly petty person he shows in private.
The contrast between the two is even… cute?
This realization stops Liu Qingge in his tracks as he absently followed along after Shen Qingqiu who was currently trying to sneak off the mountain to add to his secret collection of ridiculous novels. Liu Qingge had been reflecting on how none of the people they passed would ever dream that in a few hours the elegant and scholarly Shen Qingqiu would be safely in his rooms raging under his breath as he verbally ripped the story to shreds with eyes lit up with glee.
Liu Qingge was even looking forward to listening to him do it.
Though he could not breathe, Liu Qingge still felt his breath catch as a sudden conviction overwhelmed him: this ‘cute’ Shen Qingqiu must be protected. At all costs.
The two fairies had made it clear in their discussions that within the next several years, events would begin to align with the dark prophecy they were charged with preventing from becoming tragic truth. This cute Shen Qingqiu would then have less of a chance to patiently teach, gently tease his students, bully his fairy friend, eviscerate the unworthy, and do silly things when no one was looking — like build towers out of his flavorless dumplings or curl up with a ridiculous book and make fun of it to himself (out loud and sometimes with funny voices).
Liu Qingge would do his best to protect him as much as he could. It’s the least he can do for someone who was going to try to save the world, after all. It would be a way to continue to perform his duties by the sect as well.
And in the meantime, he doesn’t feel it’s wrong to consider Shen Qingqiu’s smiles and laughs reward enough.
He hurries to catch up with his new charge, eyes now moving to look for threats rather than trying to pull apart the fairy’s secrets.
***
It was probably a very good thing that he had decided to nominate himself for protection duty rather than a half-hearted haunting.
For more than one reason.